Mexico City Airport is saturated… again. What does it mean?

On Thursday evening, the Mexican government issued a filing stating that both terminals at the Mexico City International Airport (MEX) are saturated again. Does this signal an amazing recovery from the airline industry in the country or a more potentially troublesome issue related to the new Felipe Angeles International Airport (NLU) that will be opened in just a couple of weeks? Saturated again The Mexican government first announced the saturation of MEX back in September 2014. The airport had just received 34 million passengers back then, surpassing the original limit of around 32 million. Nonetheless, the plan at that time was to build a new airport that could substitute MEX. Texcoco International Airports was going to be located outside of Mexico City, as going to have six runways and receive up to 130 million passengers once it was fully completed. The construction of the said new airport began in 2015, while MEX continued to grow fast, despite being officially saturated. Between 2014 and 2019, the number of passengers at MEX grew by 47%, up to a maximum of 50.3 million just before COVID-19. But, as it is now known, once the Mexican government changed, so did the plan for the airport. The new government canceled Texcoco and began retrofitting a military base north of the metropolis into a mixed military-commercial airport. Last year, the Mexican aviation industry quickly recovered from the COVID-19 crisis. It closed the year by bouncing back and recovering 95% of its pre-pandemic traffic. So far, 2022 has kept the momentum, and, according to the document filed, both Terminals have had over 300 hours in which they have had more passengers than they can cope with, each. Terminal 1 is saturated in 18 out of the 24 hours of every day, and Terminal 2 (mainly used by Aeromexico and its partners) is saturated in 16 out of the 24 hours of every day. So, where's the catch? Scrapping the Texcoco airport and opting instead for the military base has been a controversial topic in Mexico, not only because of the financial and reputational hits but also because of airworthiness concerns, particularly related to the airspace management. The current government, led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, expects to have three simultaneous airports for Mexico City: MEX, NLU, and Toluca International Airport (TLC). Nevertheless, we are less than 20 days from the official inauguration of NLU, and there are only six commercial routes confirmed, none of them international. Volaris, Viva Aerobus, and Aeromexico will operate two apiece. NLU is one of the flagship projects of Mr. López Obrador, and he can't risk it failing, at least not while he is in power. In the past, members of his inner circle have stated that if the airlines don't operate voluntarily from NLU, new measures would have to be taken. One of those measures could be announcing the saturation of MEX; by doing so, MEX has to change its slot allocation process and could effectively force airlines to turn their heads around for new options. And, surprise, surprise, there's a new option opening in just a few days. What could happen? The announcement allows the State's air navigation provider to redirect the traffic from MEX to NLU whenever they think it is necessary. It will be fascinating to see how the Mexican airlines and unions react to the saturation declaration since they weren't expecting it to happen so fast. Mexico City Airport hasn't fully rebounded in terms of passengers and daily flights from the current pandemic. In both statistics, in January the airport recorded a 77% recovery compared to the same period in 2020.

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